Two Ukrainian men in wheelchairs were forcibly deported to Russia and subjected to months of abuse. Then they escaped.

• Two Ukrainian men in wheelchairs were forcibly sent to Russia last year after Kherson was occupied.
• Bohdan and Oleksandr told Insider they were bullied during their time in a Russian deportation camp.

As soon as Oleksandr and Bohdan crossed the Russian border into Estonia, a wave of relief washed over them.

The Ukrainian friends, who are both disabled and need a wheelchair to get around, told Insider they were fearful as they tried to escape the Voronezh region of Russia, several months after they were forcibly deported there.

"Being in a wheelchair makes you more vulnerable," Bohdan, 35, told Insider. "Many people with us did not speak up for themselves, but we did."

Both men were living in a care home in Kherson when Russia captured the southern region within days of it launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year. The home housed around 200 elderly and disabled adults.

But when pro-Kremlin officials took over, they were told they had to leave because it was being turned into a military facility. Their destination was Russia.

What awaited them was months of verbal attacks and psychological abuse.

'If someone tries to run away, we will punish you'

"We were scared to go [to Russia] because we knew that Russian propaganda, people there, have the wrong image of Ukrainian people and they hate us," Oleksandr, 25, told Insider.

The men were forced to board ambulances that drove them to Russian-occupied Crimea. They could do very little to fight back. From there, they took a train to a deportation center in the western Russian region of Voronezh.

"We were told: 'If someone tries to run away, we will punish you,'" he said.

The center was located in an isolated field, with a cemetery on one side, they said. There were some shops close by, but some of the disabled people were not offered assistance to go there, so were mostly trapped inside, they added.

Their days were filled with threats and bullying, the men told Insider, adding that nurses frequently referred to them "Nazis." (While justifying the war, Russia has falsely claimed that Ukraine is run by "Nazis" and that it aims to "denazify" the region.)

Bohdan said that there was "more psychological pressure than there was physical," adding that they were frequently threatened with jail time if they didn't follow orders.

Disabled people in Ukraine face a dire situation

As the conflict drags into its second year, more disabled people in Ukraine are facing the risk of violence and exploitation, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) warned in a report last November.

Data published by the agency in June last year shows that more than 143,000 disabled people have been displaced, though the number is expected to be higher. It did not give any data on how many had been forcibly deported.

However, human rights officials have said that vulnerable Ukrainians — among them, thousands of children — have been sent to Russia as part of a larger-scale forced relocation and deportation program.

Many of them have their passports seized and replaced with Russian documentation, Ukrainian officials have said.

Bohdan also briefly had his passport taken off of him, telling Insider that everyone in the care home was encouraged to get Russian passports.

"They told us without Russian passports, you won't earn any money, pay for food or bills," he said.

'My electric wheelchair broke down'

Several weeks after their arrival, caretakers started calling the men "mentally ill" and threatened to send them to a psychiatric ward. Scared for their safety, Bohdan and Oleksandr contacted Helping To Leave, an NGO that helps deported Ukrainians get out of Russia.

Two weeks later, they were picked up and driven to Moscow. But around 125 miles to the capital, the car broke down, leaving the men — unable to move and dressed in light clothing— in freezing conditions.

"We had to wait for a taxi to collect us. When we were changing cars, my electric wheelchair broke down," Bohdan said. "It was all really tense."

Once they made it to Moscow, they took a train to St. Petersburg and then crossed into neighboring Estonia from where they would eventually catch a flight to Norway. Both told Insider they plan on living there for the foreseeable future.

Describing the moment he got out of Russia, Bohdan said: "I felt like it was the day before my birthday party. I didn't know what great gifts would await me."